"He that hath a trade hath an estate; and he that hath a calling hath a place of profit and honor" - Benjamin Franklin

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Races

Cuzzin Ricky and I went to the races over the weekend. Saturday at DuQuoin for the Champ/Silver Crown cars.

The grandstand at the fairgrounds is a beautiful building. Art Deco styling with impressive ironwork not only on the railings but as accent elements in the design. In addition to the lights in the lobby, if you look close in the photo with the ironwork you can see the neon tubes that light up the front of the building at night.

General Tire had a clone of Petty's '71 Road Runner on display. Long Live the King!

There was a restored A.J. Foyt champ car that took the field out prior to the start of the race. I'd love to be able to turn a couple of laps in that thing. Great night for racing. 100 lap main on a one mile track. Hard to beat.

This one came close, however. We stopped at Springfield for the bike races at the other Illinois State Fair track. Again, good racing and one helluva finish. Brian Smith led the entire race with Kenny Coolbeth right on his rear wheel. Coolbeth slides underneath him in the third turn of the last lap and just managed to hold him off at the finish line. We were sitting in the grandstands just about at the start finish line and it was too close to call from where we were at.

And if you go to motorcycle races, you're sure to see motorcycles - like this XR1200. First one of these that I've seen. Lots of Harleys of all descriptions, of course, but lots of other interesting bikes as well. Sidecars, trailers, motorbikes, lots of interesting things.

This was the first time I've been to Springfield and Cuzzin Rick's first time to a motorcycle race. Reason enough to go right there. We've got one more race on the list for the season, maybe two. I've got a schedule conflict on one of them. Have to see about that but this past weekend was a dandy, that's for sure.